Not Just a Governess (9 page)

He gave her a wicked look. ‘Does that mean that you might call upon my services one night so that I might rescue you from such a creature?’

Elena felt hot inside at the very thought of Adam entering her bedchamber, for whatever reason. ‘I am not
that
afraid of them, my lord,’ she assured huskily.

‘Pity,’ he drawled.

She swallowed before speaking. ‘If we could resume our earlier conversation…?’

‘Of course.’ He straightened. ‘You will try not to judge me too harshly?’ He looked down at her searchingly.

Elena met that gaze openly. ‘I do not believe I could ever think too badly of you, my lord,’ she finally murmured. Truthfully. The man Adam kept hidden behind that mask of coldness and reserve was a gentleman Elena knew she was coming to like, and most of all
to trust—to be attracted to!—far too much for comfort.

Adam’s fingers tightened about hers momentarily before he released her to step away, his expression having turned grim once more. ‘I was only young myself when I was first introduced to Fanny Worthington, who was the débutante of the Season that year. She was—’ He drew in a deep breath. ‘Her golden-haired, blue-eyed beauty was such that I thought her an angel fallen to earth to dazzle and bewitch unsuspecting humans.’

Amanda’s colouring and prettiness were already showing the promise of such dazzling beauty herself when she was older, and so easily allowing Elena to imagine the exquisite beauty of her mother.

She also felt a slight jolt of something—jealousy, perhaps?—at hearing how besotted Adam had been with the beauty of his wife. A beauty so unlike her own dark hair, and eyes that were neither blue nor green…

His mouth had become a firm, flat line. ‘I was both dazzled and bewitched to such a degree that I did not notice the mercenary intent towards my fortune in the depths of those blue eyes, or realise that the marked preference Fanny showed towards my company was
for that reason alone rather than a return of the love I believed I felt for her.’

‘I think you underestimate your own…attractions, my lord,’ Elena protested.

‘Not where Fanny was concerned,’ he insisted harshly. ‘Although it is kind of you to say so,’ he added.

Elena dare not look at Adam now, for fear that he might see the expression in her own eyes was far from innocent. ‘I was not meaning to be kind, only truthful.’

‘As you invariably are.’ Adam smiled.

Elena felt a clenching in her chest, very aware that she had not been truthful with him at all about what was most important about her, namely her true identity and the circumstances that led her to come here. An oversight that she doubted Adam, with his obvious loathing for deceit of any kind, would willingly forgive.

‘You are grown very quiet, Elena…?’

She kept her lashes lowered. ‘I am merely waiting for you to continue.’

He sighed heavily. ‘It is such an unpleasant tale.’

‘Then do not tell it, if it makes you so uncomfortable.’

‘I am more concerned that I may be making
you
feel uncomfortable?’

Elena’s own emotions were in such confusion she did not know how she felt about these ridiculous feelings of jealousy, while at the same time she had a desire—a yearning—to know about Adam’s marriage to the beautiful Fanny. ‘I am not discomforted, only sorry that your marriage was such an unhappy one.’

‘I was young. And very foolish. To a degree I allowed myself to be seduced into Fanny’s bed—I think perhaps this is not a fit conversation for one such as you, after all!’ he muttered as he heard her gasp.

‘“One such as me”…?’

Adam saw the way her little chin had risen defensively, as if Elena imagined he somehow meant to insult her. ‘I now realise that it is both a sordid and unpleasant tale, and not for the ears of a lady.’ And he knew, innately, that Elena was far more of a lady than Fanny had ever been, for all that she had been the daughter of a baron.

Also, strangely, despite the fact that she was a widow, Adam found he was uncomfortable talking to Elena of the physical intimacies he and Fanny had obviously shared
before their marriage—and for a very short time after it!

There was an innocence to Elena which he found he had no wish to besmirch with the sordid details of the reason for his marriage to Fanny, or the hell that marriage had become just a short month after their wedding day.

He smiled tightly. ‘I am sure I have already told you enough that you realise my marriage to Fanny was not a love match.’ He grimaced. ‘By the time she died I believe we heartily despised one another.’

‘Surely not…?’ Elena looked dismayed. ‘You shared Amanda, if nothing else.’

Adam shrugged. ‘Fanny saw my love for my baby daughter as nothing more than a weakness which she could, and did, exploit in her constant attempts to emotionally blackmail me into doing exactly as she wished.’

‘Is that the reason—?’ She broke off with a self-conscious moue.

‘“Is that the reason”…?’ He quirked dark brows.

‘I wondered if that was the reason you were now…occasionally aloof towards Amanda?’ A heated blush warmed her cheeks. ‘Because in the past your love for her was exploited and used against you?’

He gave her a shocked look. ‘I had not thought of it as being so, but perhaps you are partly right…But only partly, I am afraid.’ He frowned. ‘The rest of my fatherly bungling really is due to a complete lack of experience in dealing with six-year-old children.’

‘But which you are now attempting to rectify.’

‘But which I am now attempting to rectify,’ Adam agreed.

‘What happened on the occasions when your wife’s attempts to emotionally blackmail you failed?’ Elena prompted curiously.

He smiled thinly. ‘Ah, then she would have fits of temper which occasionally resulted in my sporting physical evidence of her displeasure!’

‘She was violent towards you?’ Elena gasped.

He grimaced. ‘Her attacks were usually of a verbal variety, but I do recall suffering three scratches down my cheek from her fingernails on one occasion, and a bite on my bottom lip on another,’ he recounted grimly. ‘I very quickly grew to dislike such excessive displays of emotional temperament, and even all these years later, I still shy away from them.’

‘Ah.’ Elena breathed. ‘Which is no doubt the reason you were so displeased when Amanda appeared to have a temper tantrum of a similar nature last week.’

‘Yes…’

Elena realised now exactly why this man gave the appearance of being so cold and haughty, when she now had good reason to believe he was neither of those things. Well…perhaps Adam was naturally haughty, she allowed ruefully. But, after the things he had chosen to reveal to her, she now believed that coldness to be a barrier, one that he had deliberately erected in order to keep from suffering the same hurt as he had time and time again during his ill-fated marriage to the volatile Fanny; no doubt it also served to warn others to keep their distance.

Except Elena, standing but inches away from him, was not at a safe distance.

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘I am…honoured that you have chosen to share this information with me, but—but perhaps it is time I now retired for the night.’ It was a question as much as a statement.

One that caused Adam’s eyes to darken
with an emotion she could not fathom. ‘Is that what you want?’

‘It is very late.’

He smiled slightly. ‘That is not what I asked, Elena.’

The tension between them was palpable. ‘I—Surely that would be for the best?’

‘Again, that is not what I asked. Is it what you
really
want to do?’ He pressed as he reached out to grasp both her gloved hands in his.

Elena’s fingers trembled within the firmness of that grasp.

Because it was not what she wanted at all. What she
wanted
was to remain here with Adam awhile longer, drinking the brandy in her glass as the two of them sat quietly together and talked some more, of pleasanter things than his unhappy marriage to Fanny, and then—then she would like it very much if Adam were to take her in his arms and kiss her again!

The memory of the last kiss they had shared, a kiss of warmth and pleasure, had helped to wipe away some of the nightmare of the memory of Neville’s brutality. To a degree that Elena had thought of that kiss often this past few days: while she was teaching
Amanda, eating her meals, strolling about the garden, or alone in her bed at night, but most of all when she was alone in her bed at night. Instead of the revulsion and nausea she might have expected, Elena had instead felt warm and satisfied just at the delicious memory of Adam’s gentleness and passion.

She had only to think of that kiss to once again feel Adam’s lips against her own, to remember how wonderful, how utterly safe, it had felt to be held in his arms, to feel the hardness of his body pressed against hers, that sensuous mouth moving softly, assuredly, over her own, wiping out those other horrific memories and instead igniting a passion, a desire, within Elena that she had never realised existed.

A passion and desire she had longed to feel again.

Adam’s breath caught in his throat, as he now saw the emotions he’d been waiting for burning in Elena’s beautiful blue-green eyes as she gazed at him silently.

Emotions—and a woman—Adam knew he did not have the strength to resist as all doubts and caution fled his brain, along with those fears for the tight control he had held over his life for so long, the blood swiftly travelling
from his brain and going southwards. ‘Elena…!’ He released her hands only long enough to take her into his arms, the intentness of his gaze locked with hers, his lips parting as he slowly lowered his head to claim the delicious softness of hers.

S
he tasted of honey and brandy, her lips warm and compliant as they moved shyly beneath his, and her skin smelt of the strawberries and cream which had been their dessert at dinner earlier. A heady combination that Adam could not, did not, want to resist and one that all too quickly took him to a height of desire he had not felt in a very long time.

Too long, Adam realised with a groan as he very quickly became completely engorged inside his breeches, thickening and lengthening to an almost painful degree as he continued to kiss and taste, to tenderly nibble on the fullness of Elena’s bottom lip. His tongue ventured into the moist and heated cavern of her mouth, seeking out each sensitive and secret
place as he heard her breath catch in her throat and felt her gloved fingers reach up to cling to the broad width of his shoulders.

His arms tightened about her and his lips continued to devour and claim hers as he pressed his burgeoning thighs against Elena’s much softer ones, as he sought, craved, to find some relief for the fierce ache of his pulsing erection.

A relief he could not, should not, press upon the woman who had borne so much of his temper these past few weeks, only to then be ignored, before becoming a willing listener this evening to his torments, both past and present!

A woman Adam employed as governess to his daughter.

And a woman who could not afford, quite literally, to deny the liberties he was taking, for fear that he might dismiss her.

He knew that his disastrous marriage to Fanny had made him cold and occasionally cruel, but was he now guilty of also becoming a man one who took advantage of unprotected females? That thought did what nothing else could and threw a bucket of ice-cold water on his libido.

Elena stumbled as Adam suddenly wrenched
his mouth from hers before holding her at arm’s length, those grey eyes blazing darkly in the fierceness of his face. She blinked in an effort to clear her muddled brain, having been totally swept away by the rage of passion created by the taste and feel of Adam’s mouth possessing hers. ‘I do not understand. Did I do something wrong?’

His expression was harsh as he released her to step back. ‘It is I who am the one in the wrong,’ he rasped harshly. ‘I should not have—I apologise for—’ He gave a self-disgusted shake of his head. ‘You have my permission to slap my face, without fear of reprisals.’

Elena noted the tension in his shoulders and spine, the nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw and the fierce glitter of those dark-grey eyes, his hands once against clasped tightly behind his back. She also recognised that he had just invited her to inflict physical retribution upon him in the same way that his wife had once taken such pleasure in doing.

‘I could not possibly do that. But perhaps you regret what just happened?’ she queried gently.

He gave a humourless smile. ‘How could
I possibly do that when I obviously enjoyed it so much?’

Some of the tension eased from Elena’s own shoulders. ‘As did I,’ she admitted, knowing it was true. She trusted Adam not to hurt her. Physically, at least…

He drew in a deep, controlling breath. ‘It is not right for me to take unfair advantage of you or force my attentions upon you.’

She gave a frown of confusion. ‘Did I give the impression that I felt forced or taken advantage of?’

‘No…But you must feel as if you have been—’

‘Adam.’

‘—and as such I—’ He broke off his explanation to stare at her. ‘That is the first time that you have voluntarily called me by my given name.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why now?’

The softness of her gaze met his levelly. ‘Possibly because I enjoyed being kissed by you, as much as you enjoyed kissing me, and that I now think of you as Adam.’

The strong column of his throat moved as he swallowed before speaking. ‘Did you enjoy it enough to repeat the experience?’

Elena knew that she should refuse him. That if she didn’t, it would irrevocably change their relationship. Except…after the things Adam had just told her about his marriage, and after being held in his arms and kissed by him again, she accepted that it was already irrevocably changed.

She might only have that one nightmare experience with Neville with which to compare Adam, but even so she recognised that his kisses were nothing like her cousin’s, that Adam had kissed her as a starving man newly arrived at a feast, or a man dying of thirst in a desert, a man who longed to eat and drink until that hunger was sated.

Elena knew she should be frightened of such an intensity of passion, that she should resist—should not want or crave the compelling and irresistible attractions of her employer. Yet she found she did, that she needed to erase those memories of Neville’s attack upon her once and for all with Adam’s gentleness.

It had also been months since she had felt anyone wanted so much as her company, let alone desired her with the intensity of passion Adam had just displayed so readily; Neville did not, could not, count. Indeed, Elena
wanted another memory, a much pleasanter one, to put in its place!

‘I believe I might, yes,’ she whispered, then stepped forwards until she was once again pressed up against the lean and muscled length of his body, her gaze clear and steady as she raised her face invitingly to his.

It was an invitation that Adam did not, could not, refuse. He swept Elena up in his arms and once again claimed those full and pouting lips with his own, the kiss questioning and yet fiercely demanding at the same time as he moulded her slender curves to his much harder ones.

But, as Adam had already knew only too well, it was not enough, not with this particular woman. He wanted more, so much more of Elena than the taste of her lips or the feel of the soft skin of her throat as his own lips sought out each and every sensitive dip and hollow with teeth and tongue, as the insistent pulse of his desire told him only too clearly!

As it must also be telling her!

Elena was not an innocent young miss, but a widow, a woman, not a girl, who would recognise the depths of Adam’s desire for her when his arousal pressed so insistently against her.

Adam’s teeth closed on the lobe of her ear as he murmured. ‘I have been dreaming, imagining, wondering…’

‘Yes?’ she breathed softly, her neck arched as she leant into him.

‘While I was away I thought endlessly of your breasts…’

Her breath caught sharply. ‘You did?’

He nodded. ‘And I have wondered…are they tipped with rose or peach?’

The breasts Adam spoke of so candidly suddenly felt hot and swollen inside the bodice of Elena’s gown, the tips now swelling, tingling, becoming painfully sensitive against the material of her chemise.

It was at once shocking and yet strangely exciting to imagine Adam thinking so intently about her breasts and the colour of her nipples. Should she be so bold as to respond to that? ‘They are rose,’ Elena answered him huskily. ‘A deep rose.’

‘Ah,’ he moaned, his lips a trail of fire across the full swell of her breasts. ‘May I touch you, Elena?’ Adam raised his head to look at her, his eyes an intense glittering grey, a dark flush across the sculptured planes of his cheekbones. ‘May I look at you there, touch you and then kiss you?’

Elena could no longer breathe, felt as if she were drowning in the unfathomable depths of his eyes, finally dragging her own gaze away to instead look at his lips. Sensuously soft lips. Lips that he’d asked if he might kiss her with. Not on her own lips, but on her breasts. As he would perhaps wish to kiss that other, even more intimate place between her thighs, too?

Elena felt a sudden warm rush of moistness just at the thought of Adam touching her there. With his hands. With his lips. With his tongue, perhaps?

Did men and woman do that to each other? Would Adam expect her to touch and kiss him with the same shocking level of intimacy?

Elena thought that he might.

Because Adam believed her to be a widow. A woman who had been married, and was therefore perfectly familiar with the physical intimacies that took place between a man and a woman. He thought she would not be shocked by the things he was saying to her, the things he was describing he wished to do to and with her.

She trembled with longing, but had to be prudent. ‘We cannot—I could not permit—’ She gave an embarrassed shake of her head
even as she straightened her shoulders, determined to get her point across. ‘I could not permit full intimacy.’ There, she had said it! And surely, now that she was aware of the reason for Adam’s hasty marriage to Fanny Worthington, he would not want to take the risk of impregnating her, either?

‘I would not ask for it,’ Adam reassured her immediately.

‘Then…yes, you may.’ Elena’s stomach gave a sickening lurch of anticipation even as her heart skipped several beats. ‘But—is it not overly bright in here?’ She glanced self-consciously about the candlelit room.

Adam gave her an understanding look. ‘Would you feel more relaxed if I were to blow out some of the candles?’

‘Or all of them,’ she suggested ruefully.

He made a throaty sound of protest. ‘Then I would not be able to see you at all!’

Of course he would not. And Elena knew she should not allow him to see her. Except her breasts now ached so as they pressed and throbbed against the confines of her gown, bursting to be free, as if they at least knew, and ached, for the pleasures of Adam’s hands and mouth.

If Adam had been in the least rough with
her, or demanding, or seemed in the least arrogantly triumphant about her obvious responses to him, then Elena knew she would not have hesitated to refuse him. It was Adam’s very gentleness—his gentlemanliness, his regard for her own comfort and pleasure—which now piqued Elena’s curiosity to know, to experience the desire of a man not intent upon hurting her.

‘A few less candles alight would be…preferable,’ she conceded.

‘Then fewer candles you shall have.’ He reached up to cup her chin, the soft pad of his thumb a caress against her bottom lip as he looked down at her searchingly. ‘I will not do anything you do not wish for, Elena.’

Her eyes widened. ‘I never thought that you would.’

‘No?’ Adam was sure he was not mistaken about the trepidation he had seen in the depths of her eyes. As if she feared he might somehow hurt her. As someone else—her husband, perhaps?—had once hurt her? Adam had never been able to understand why a man, any man, would ever wish to hurt a woman rather than give her pleasure.

Even in the depths of the despair over his awful marriage with Fanny, despite several
times suffering the painful provocation of her scratching and biting, Adam had never once felt a desire to instigate physical retribution of his own. Partly, perhaps, because Fanny seemed to want, even crave him to lose control and strike her, before taking her in a sexually violent manner, which Adam had refused to do. He’d found it totally abhorrent and against his very nature to dominate a woman in that way.

He already knew Elena well enough to know she was Fanny’s complete opposite, in looks as well as temperament. A woman of dignity and elegance, gentleness, and yet at the same time deeply hidden passions. A quietly self-contained woman, who did not need to be constantly reckless in her efforts to prove her feminine power over men. Over him.

As if sensing some of the unpleasantness of his thoughts, Elena reached up to gently smooth the frown from between his eyes. ‘I fear we have both been hurt in the past.’

‘Yes…’

She nodded. ‘I will make myself comfortable on the
chaise
and unbutton my gown whilst you blow out some of the candles.’

Adam looked down at her intently for several
more seconds before nodding his satisfaction with the trust he could see in her eyes. ‘I should like that very much.’ He released her before turning away, primarily to give her the privacy to unfasten the back of her gown, but also so that he might move about the room extinguishing half a dozen of the eight lit candles.

The room was thrown into golden shadow by the time Adam crossed the room to join Elena on the
chaise
, his eyes glittering even more brightly in the soft glow of the dimmed candlelight as he looked down at her. ‘It hardly seems fair if I remain fully dressed.’

She blinked those long dark lashes. ‘And if Jeffries should decide to return, after all?’

‘He will not.’

Elena paused for a second to think before speaking. ‘I—is Jeffries accustomed to your bringing women here and making love to them—?’ She fell silent as Adam placed his fingertips against her lips.

‘No, he is not, he merely knows when he is dismissed for the evening,’ Adam answered firmly, evenly, knowing it was a fair question for Elena to ask, but resenting it all the same. ‘I never bring the women I…take to my bed,
to my estates, Elena. Nor would I ever think of doing so now, when my grandmother and daughter are both abed upstairs.’

Her smile was strained once he had removed his fingertips. ‘Perhaps, then, it is nothing more than a convenience that I am already here?’

Adam closed his eyes briefly. ‘My desire for you is not in the least “convenient”,’ he assured ruefully. ‘Indeed, it is most
inconve-
nient. It is just—I can no longer resist wanting to kiss and touch you, Elena,’ he admitted gruffly.

Her cheeks coloured warmly. ‘I apologise. I—’ She moistened her lips, unknowingly drawing the heat of Adam’s gaze to that provocative movement. ‘I am only—I have never—this is not something I have ever done—allowed—before.’

He knew that, had been aware of her shyness when she asked for most of the candles in the room to be extinguished before she allowed him to look upon her breasts.

Elena might be a widow, but Adam knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that she had not become promiscuous after her husband died, and her very youth, and the brief duration of her marriage, implied that she could
not been so beforehand, either. Nor did that marriage itself appear to have given her the physical satisfaction she deserved and that Adam wished to share with her, if her continued shyness was any indication.

His gaze continued to hold hers as he stepped back slightly. ‘I believe it only fair that I join you in partially disrobing.’ His hands moved up to remove his superfine and untie his neckcloth, before putting them both aside, his waistcoat joining them seconds later. He unfastened the three buttons of his shirt and then pulled it free from the waistband of his breeches to leave it hanging free about his thighs.